March Madness

Backroad Ramblings

Updated: 1 week ago

You’re going to hear a lot about March Madness in the next few weeks. March Madness is a lot of different things to different people.

For farmers, it might be the madness that comes on after days of watching a shrieking wind blow your fields away. For ranchers it might by the madness of sleep deprivation from calving season. For someone who farms and ranches, and therefore gets a double shot of madness, it might be the realization that you are mad. But don’t worry, as soon as planting starts you will forget about it again. You won’t quit being mad, but you will forget about it.

But what real March Madness is, of course, is the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Now some people don’t follow college basketball, so they don’t give a hoot who’s playing or who wins, but even people like this enjoy picking teams to root for. If you’re one of these and you’d like to fill out a bracket and follow the tournament but you don’t have the faintest idea what you’re doing, the natural thing to do is look at the mascots.

The most popular mascots are Tigers and Bulldogs. They both have eleven teams claiming them as mascots, so if you like cats and dogs, go with every team that has a Tiger and a Bulldog and your bracket is half done.

If you like things edgy, there are the weirder mascots such as the Blue Devils, the Buckeyes, the Shockers, the Ragin’ Cajuns, the Crimson, the Orange and the Hilltoppers. Nobody really knows what they are, but they sound cool.

If you live your life by the weather, you might like to put your money on the Cyclones or the Hurricanes. And if you really want a chance at winning, choose teams that are Wildcats. Teams with Wildcats (Villanova, Arizona, Kentucky) seem to be very good at clawing their way to the very top.

The important thing to remember, if you don’t know what you’re doing, is not to pretend you know what you’re doing. Tell them you’re a mascot fan, and you won’t have to try to understand when they start talking about the AP ranking, the BPI, the bubble and the Cinderella. Although most of us can guess what a Cinderella is.

So anyway, there you go, a total scientific rundown on how to fill out your bracket for March Madness. Have fun with it because that’s what March Madness is all about. Unless you’re a farmer or rancher…